


Foresworn

by TrishaCollins



Series: Knight Errant [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Cor doesn't understand what is being asked of him, Gen, Noctis is always asleep, it hurts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-26 00:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18173564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrishaCollins/pseuds/TrishaCollins
Summary: Regis would do anything for his son. Anything. Even die in his place before he has a chance to realize he is meant for it. But with his wife dead and Noctis still a child, he must place someone in charge.





	Foresworn

The way Cor figured someone could not survive to serve two kings by being an idiot. Yet here Clarus was nodding along like everything coming out of Regis's mouth somehow made sense.

Regis looked at him - wearing that same pleading, anxious look through had caused some questionable allowances during the first leg of the war - one hand settled on Noctis' sleeping back. "I cannot allow it to be Noctis."

He took a deep breath, counted backwards in his head until some fragment of that registered. "If you're asking for permission to get yourself killed, as your bodyguard I cannot allow you to do that."

"Cor..." Regis's voice shook, and that was specifically an unfair manipulation on the part of his king he would register a complaint about just as soon as he talked the damned fool out of trussing himself up and serving himself for a six course, murderous luncheon. Pencil it in between the eight o’clock city planning meal and the review of the gods.

Gods - actually no, fuck the gods. The gods had caused this mess, the gods and every hair brained ancestor Regis had to agree to this mutually assured destruction. "You don't even know if this will work."

"I cannot allow it to be Noctis." There was resolve there, a stern sort of Kingly courage that he normally allowed to inspire him.

Right now it made him want to deck Regis. "You would have to drop the wall."

Regis nodded. "You and the Glaive would need to hold it."

Fucker. He must have already discussed it with Clarus. He switched his glare to that traitor. 

"I can keep it for as long as we are in Lucis, possibly until we reach Leviathan. Clarus will accompany me." Regis was talking now. "I will induct the new Glaive and Grant their powers to as many of the crownsguard as you think can handle it. I will also appoint young Gladio and Tobias' nephew as guards for my son. I will trust you to train them for when the time comes."

He grit his teeth. "And Noctis? Who in the court will you appoint as his guardian?"

Regis smiled, glanced at Clarus, and stepped forward to give the little prince to him. "I could think of no one better to trust my son to, Cor. Or my city."

He gaped at the fool of a king, arms automatically accepting the burden of the child.

He looked at Clarus, demanding answers. But Clarus wasn’t looking at him, he was looking at their king – their friend and brother – with a look somewhere between peaceful and resigned. 

Damn the man. He had a newborn daughter and he was planning on leaving her, the wife and his young son here.

"Are you done glaring through my head, Cor?" Regis asked mildly. "I am going to assign Sonja to getting you settled with grow lamps. The warehouse projects are already producing yields as well, setting back 70 percent in storage. We also have the generators set in every district. You shan't starve even if you are driven back. Everything you will need will be there for you when the time comes. I imagine you will have six months at least."

"It isn't too late to put a stop to this, Majesty." He rumbled, switching his glare to Clarus. They presented a relatively united front, so he reasoned that if he could manage to shift one to his side the entire experiment with co-opting the will of the gods would fall apart. 

It hadn't thus far, but he had been this stubborn for a reason.

Noctis slept blissfully unaware in his arms, body heavy with the weight of sleep. Had Regis bespelled his son? He had sworn them to compliance not to do that when Noctis was teething and miserable, it would suit his current trend of self-sacrifice to ignore his own command. 

"It is, in fact. Quite late to put a stop to any of this. Those di we're cast long before either of us were born." Regis gave him a tired smile. *What it is not too late to prevent, my old friend, is for that burden to fall on the shoulders of my son."

"You would take the blade to the neck in his place? You have admitted this entire damned thing is a suicide mission that hopefully resolves the Accursed existence that is the Chancellor. Surely you realize how mad you sound!" The arms he held the child with tightened, he was looking at Regis again, not at Clarus. He was not a man prone to strong surges of emotions, but had he a greater gift for magic he was sure the air would burn around him.

"Mad I may be. But should the crystal require but one more life, it shall be mine before Noctis grows old enough to know fear." It was that way Regis had of speaking, that understated grandeur that had impressed him at fifteen and now infuriated him beyond all measure.

"And you - sworn to protect him! You would allow him to give his life?" He whirled on Clarus, itching for a blade - for a fight he could win with a sword and not with the protests of an injured heart. 

If Regis gave him a fight - a war, a battle, a target - he would fight for the man, bleed and die for the man. Yet his king - his friend - was demanding something of him that he was entirely untrained to face. To allow his king that he had sworn to and fought for walk to his death without a fight.

To allow him to give his life in the place of the child. 

“Someone will die, Cor.” Clarus had no spoken this entire time, had allowed Regis to lead them, to command them with the same force of presence he had when he had been the crown prince. “I cannot command a man to give up his own child for the sake of the world.”

“Then – damn you both – find a way! Find another way! Surely-“ He had lost his words, the one thing he had reasoned for so long were his to command he doled them out so rarely. “This- you should have discussed this with me! Rather than…Dam you both!” 

Regis lifted his hand, pressing it to his shoulder. “All you need will be there when you need it, my friend. I know you will give Noctis everything you have given to me. A stalwart voice of reason when others might try to curry favor, to soothe my pride instead of correct my flaws.”

“YOU DO NOT EVEN KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN! If the gods will accept this ploy!” The words exploded out of him, and for the first time he found himself drawing away. “Or if they even mean to take Noctis. Damn the gods, and damn you too if you think I will accept this.” 

“I do not need you to accept it. Cor. We are decided on this path. Some preparations are to be made. What I need from you is…” Regis drew a heavy, tired breath. “I need you to look after my son and my kingdom.”

Words failed him, arms tightening around Noctis, throat so tight he would not have been able to speak even if he had the words for it. 

Clarus stepped forward, one arm draping over his shoulder. “We’re asking you to look after our families, man. Because we won’t be able to.”

A wetness dropped onto the sleeping prince’s hair, droplets that he at first did not realize were his own tears. “You cannot ask me to give you leave to die.” 

“I am not. I have chosen.” Regis settled the hand on his shoulder again, giving it a squeeze. “I am giving you leave to live, old friend, and to repair the harm I will do.” 

How he hated his friend in that moment, how he loathed him. 

Because he knew he would do what was asked of him.


End file.
